If there’s one key takeaway, it’s that the Bureau of Land Management was essentially formed to regulate ranchers and the swaths of their livestock grazing public lands, and to combat further degradation caused by livestock.

This is how it started.

1880’s

After the Civil War, the livestock industry out west boomed. Herders drove their livestock into territories, grazing their herds wherever there was forage. In this wild west, there were no restrictions to access and no regulations on the land. Folks could claim what they wanted, and they could protect their claim by fencing acreage and water resources with barbed wire.

1890’s

Livestock grazing and logging severely degrade western landscapes, so Congress takes steps to create what they then called “forest reserves.”

1905

The Forest Service is established and designates these critical areas of degradation as National Forests. The primary purpose of the Forest Service at that time was to “permit, regulate, or prohibit grazing in the forest reserves.”

From inception, ranchers were given full grazing privileges, and according to USDA records, livestock owners were given “ample opportunity to adjust their business to the new conditions.” This policy and process neither initiated nor led to a reduction in overgrazing, despite being the main purpose for and mission of the new agency.

1934

Federal lands outside of National Forests continue to be a free-for-all for livestock grazing to the point that Congress passes the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934.

The act directs the Secretary of the Interior “to stop injury to the public grazing lands by preventing overgrazing.”

A new Division of Grazing is established. The Division of Grazing delineates allotments, issues grazing permits, and collects fees. After the enactment of the Taylor Grazing Act, livestock numbers are significantly reduced and nomadic sheep and cattle herding is eliminated.

“The purpose of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was to end open grazing on public lands.”

- Center for Biological Diversity, Costs and Consequences: The Real Cost of Grazing on America’s Public Lands

1937

Upon the passage of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937 during the Great Depression, the federal government claims western homesteads that have failed — millions of acres and many in California, Montana, New Mexico, and Texas. That new federally-claimed land is transferred to the Grazing Service or General Land Office. Additional parcels are rolled under the management of the Forest Service and will come to be called “national grasslands.”

1939

The Division of Grazing is renamed The Grazing Service.

1946

The Grazing Service and the General Land office merge to become the Bureau of Land Management. As BLM, agency authority and responsibility include rangeland management as well as public land minerals and land transfers.

1969

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is passed into law, including language that doesn’t explicitly address public lands ranching, but does specifically set policy to “attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation…”.

But perhaps the biggest change to public lands use is that NEPA directs the governing agencies to “utilize a systematic, interdisciplinary approach which will ensure the integrated use of the natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts in planning and in decisionmaking which may have an impact on man’s environment”.

Essentially, since the passing of NEPA, the BLM is required by law to use the best available science to lead decision-making about the use and overuse of environments on public land.

1973

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is passed, providing a conservation program for threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found.

As summarized by the Environmental Protection Agency, ESA also requires the BLM and United States Forest Service “to ensure that actions they authorize, fund, or carry out are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species.”

1974

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act is passed. It calls for renewable resources on national forest lands to be managed through “analysis of environmental and economic impacts, coordination of multiple use and sustained yield opportunities as provided in the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960.”

And, a note of significance — The Act also called for “public participation in the development of the program.”

1976

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act is amended to become the National Forest Management Act.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) is made law and the BLM gets an update to its mission: to manage public lands for multiple uses and “sustained yield”.

The act establishes a Range Betterment Fund for range improvements and it is supposed to be funded by half of all BLM and USFS grazing fee receipts.

1978

The Public Rangelands Improvement Act (PRIA) is passed and sets grazing fees on both Forest Service and BLM lands in 16 western states.1 Grazing fees are determined by a formula which is made permanent in 1986.

Top-level details on PRIA public lands grazing fees:

• Fees are a minimum of $1.35 per Animal Unit Month (AUM)

• The annual fee adjustment cannot exceed 25% of the previous year’s fee.

• BLM and USFS divide their rangelands into allotments, which vary in size and can be anywhere from just a few to hundreds of thousands of acres of public land.

• BLM uses a grazing permit system to allow grazing within allotments.

• Grazing allotment leases are administered through the issuance of 10-year term permits that can be renewed without competition and current public lands ranching lessees are given preference for the use of said public land, despite others who are interested in the permit.

“The application of the PRIA fee formula has ultimately led to BLM and USFS grazing fees that increasingly diverge from rates charged by private landowners as well as other federal and state Agencies.” - Center for Biological Diversity

2023

As of 2023 and despite 45 years of inflation and the changing costs of goods, the public lands grazing fee remains set to $1.35 per AUM.

Source: Center for Biological Diversity